What Is the Canadian Ministry Forum?

Sharing, training, celebrating and visioning are at the core of the Canadian Ministry Forum. Held once every three years, this gathering of representatives of the Christian Reformed Church in Canada seeks input and dialogue between local churches and denominational leaders, which is essential for healthy ministry development.

Together, a diverse group of CRC members appointed by each classis, the Board of Trustees-Canada, and the denominational ministry leaders will take the feedback offered and build a new vision and strategy for what God is calling the Christian Reformed Church to be and do in ministry in Canada.

This visioning and strategy process starts at the local level with A Conversation Among Churches hosted by each classis across Canada. The outcomes from these events will feed into the national forum.

Date & Venue
The Purpose
The Benefits
The Participants
The Format

Date & Venue:

The first-ever Canadian Ministry Forum took place Thursday, May 30--Saturday, June 1, 2002 at
The King's University College, Edmonton, Alberta.
The date and venue for the next CMF is still to be determined.

The Purpose:

The purpose of this national event is to enhance the connectedness of the Canadian churches, classes, region and country as a whole, with a view to increasing our shared ministries within Canadian life. We hope to generate two outcomes:

• suggested directions for ministry in Canada as input to the Board of Trustees for considering new priorities, and
• possible new ministries or enhancement of existing ministries in order to respond to needs, opportunities and challenges in the local church and in Canadian society.

The Benefits:

The benefits to this process are many and occur on various levels.
The Local Church benefits by:
• learning what works in various ministry areas
• finding out about resources that are available

The Classis benefits by:
• stimulating fellowship among churches
• identifying resources available in churches
• receiving input from churches on their priorities
• helping classis and its committees prepare a vision for ministry

The Denomination benefits by:
• hearing what is on the hearts and minds of local churches
• receiving input on ministry priorities as the denomination sets its priorities
• establishing a link with local churches

The Participants:

140-150 people including:
• seven representatives from each classis
• fifteen board members
• ten agency directors
• ten Canadian denominational staff as resource and listeners
• twenty additional people as necessary to ensure diverse representation

Tentative Format:

Registration
Worship and Prayer
Introduction: setting the stage
Achieve, Preserve, Avoid
Dinner
Story-telling and Ministry Fair
Worship

Day 2
Worship and announcements
Keynote address
Discussion of cultural context
The vision workshop
Dinner
Evening Entertainment
Closing

Day 3
Worship and announcements
Workgroups
Plenary report session
Next steps
Closing

For more information, contact Henry Hess 905-336-2920 or via fax at 905-336-8344